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Gutting the Talent Bench

Lead Change Blog

What is your organization’s claim to fame—operational excellence, customer intimacy or product leadership? If your focus is customer intimacy, do the employees who personally excel at operational excellence and product leadership feel engaged or disenfranchised in your workplace? How are you doing in the other two areas?

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The Senior Leader’s Checklist for Shaping Company Culture

Next Level Blog

The authors argued that companies had to pick between one of three paths to value creation and success in the market – operational excellence, customer intimacy or product leadership. Back in my own days as an executive, I was hugely influenced by a book called The Discipline of Market Leaders.

Company 246
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The Number 1 Tip to Ensure Returns on Your Firm’s Digital Strategy

N2Growth Blog

Upon review, the provision of a Web-based sales support product was determined to be needed as a condition of project completion; Customer Intimacy Project: A regional financial services firm new it was losing customers because they lacked the necessary tools to give their customers the attention that they sought.

Strategy 187
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Customer Intimacy, Meet Operational Excellence

Harvard Business Review

As a direct marketer we have been good at customer intimacy. We know a lot about our customers. We have known for a long time that we needed to be operationally excellent, but in the past we''ve fixed problems reactively, after the event, to keep customers happy. But it isn''t easy.

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Operational Excellence, Meet Customer Intimacy

Harvard Business Review

While a focus on lowering costs, improving quality, and providing consistent, reliable service will continue to be important, I see a shift in the coming decade to combining operational excellence with customer intimacy: tailored solutions for individual customers based on a deep understanding of their needs.

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IBM at 100: How to Outlast Depression, War, and Competition

Harvard Business Review

Know your customers intimately. Never settling, IBM management charged a taskforce with developing a personal computer to compete in the young, growing market for smaller, more versatile machines. Newly appointed CEO Lou Gerstner logged thousands of hours visiting customers, industry experts and analysts.

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How IBM, Intuit, and Rich Products Became More Customer-Centric

Harvard Business Review

In this article we look at three very different organizations – IBM, Rich Products, and Intuit – and the three different paths they have taken in reconfiguring their operations for more customer intimacy, by changing methods, reengineering processes, and transforming culture. IBM: Applying a Hybrid Design-Thinking Approach.